Holly Behl and I represented MITA and I also spotted Buddy Strittmatter and Edward Retta (without Marilyn, who had a conflicting assignment). I really enjoyed the (very rare) opportunity to spend two days in an academic environment and most specially the interaction with students and faculty. Dr. Alicia Rueda-Acedo and Dr. Ana Gregorio-Cano made me feel particularly welcome.

Our keynote speaker was Dr. Catherine Way, from the University of Granada, in Spain. She is very active with the ATA grading program and has attended various ATA conferences. Her topic, “Embrace the World, People Don’t Bite”, was light and fun and included many examples of her experiences with multiculturalism and perceptions of foreigners in different countries. I particularly liked her ‘Steps to Effective Interculturality’ (see photo). She was born in the U.K. but has lived and worked in Spain for a long time.

On the second day, there was a session dedicated to translation and interpreting in the DFW area, with three speakers. My favorite was Hana Laurenzo, owner & CEO of Teneo Linguistics. She had impressed me very much as speaker at a MITA meeting many years ago. We need to have her back! A consumate professional with flawless English, she was born in the Czech Republic but has lived in Fort Worth for many years. Her company specializes in translation services (not interpreting) and she offers internships.

Hana mentioned that the U.S. is the largest market for translation and interpreting services in the world. Together, the European countries represent more than half of the global market, recently valued at $41 billion.

She emphasized the need to ascertain our audience every time we accept a job. She mentioned St. Jerome, our patron saint, as a colleague who was a marketing wizard and definitely knew his audience. He made the conscious decision to translate the Bible into the vulgata, which was the Latin spoken by the common people. Given the size of the Latin-speaking population when he was alive, kudos to him.

Hana revealed a new project. She now has a subscription-based service (going live very soon!) which she has entitled “ILP – Institute for Language Professionals”.

She closed with a motto that I absolutely loved:

Good, better, best, never let it rest;

Till your good is better and your better is best

--------------------------------------------------------------- Our guest contributor today is Tereza Braga, a Dallas-area Brazilian translator, past president of the Portuguese division of the ATA, and long-time member of MITA. Thank you, Tereza, for the recap and the pictures!